What do I look for? I'd like something powerful enough to run games, just in case I'm away from my console, but it'll mostly be used for work. Ideally I'd like it to be durable, because I'll probably have to take it on flights when Covid eventually burns out.
What's the lesser of two evils with Intel and AMD? One is run by a woman, the other talks about the future belonging to women.
I suppose I could buy used and negate that issue.
What's a good brand to get? I always had Lenovo before, except for a Surface Laptop that barely lasted a year.
Running games on any laptop, no matter how powerful or well-designed, is going to deplete its lifespan.
That said, Asus makes the best gaming laptops as far as I'm concerned. I got one for uni and gamed on it everyday, whether it was Civ V and VI, Borderlands II or DragonAge: a lot of high-graphics games for their era. That laptop lasted 6 years, and it only got too sluggish to run those games during its last year of life.
I have an Asus gaming laptop that's about 4 years old, and it's probably the flimsiest laptop I've ever had. Bunch of the bottom screws stripped, and chunks of plastic regularly break off the case.
I had the laptop it replaced for 8 years, so it's not like I abuse my computers. But it'll be a miracle if this thing survives another year. Which is sad because performance-wise it's pretty solid.
Do you lug it around a lot? I'm on my third Asus and I've never had that problem, but I do tend to just leave it on my desk and not carry it around anywhere and I don't travel like I used to.
The one I have now is 3 years in, and works just as well as the day I got it.
No I rarely do any traveling with it. Most of the time I'm just carrying it up and down the stairs at my house.
There's your problem.
If that's a daily occurrence, the thing is going to break. Laptops made in the last 10 years are just junk. Leave it sitting on a desk and it'll be fine; treat it like a portable device and you're going to have a piece of broken garbage in a couple of years.
I meant durable as in not fragile, rather than lifespan length. I'd rather not have to replace it because it got damaged during a flight or fell from a small height.
https://durabilitymatters.com/durable-laptops/
or, you could just get protective case and not throw laptop itself around
Probably an uhelpful extreme, but since you want durability, you can check the Toughbook line of laptops. I think it's standard for them to have shock absorbers around the hard drive. Some models are bullet-proof. I had one for a few years, loved it - but I was playing DOS games on it. Rubber keyboard sucks, though.
I used to use a Durabook laptop. Picked it because it was what cops used at the time, and doubled as a bullet-resistant shield. Very durable thing. Battery life was poor, though, and it really didn't run vidya all that amazingly, but you should use a desktop for proper vidya anyways.
The ROG stuff? I've never tried them, but I hear good things.